Shirley

by Susan Scarf Merrell

Her smile. Shy, but not so. As if there was a part of her that knew herself to be better than me, and another part, equally powerful, that believed herself to be worse.

Shirley’s was the smile of a woman like me, the abandoned and the never-loved; it was the smile of the arrogantly insecure. It was the smile of the mother-to-be who had never been mothered, the smile of the brilliant person in a woman’s body, the beautiful woman in an ugly shell. I loved her immediately, I wanted to be her and take care of her.

Part of being loved by Shirley, I suppose, was always that I appreciated those women, too. And I still see why they matter, what they teach us: that an adventure can begin without warning, that the most minor decisions—right, left—can change lives in a moment. That friendships, even the best of them, don’t always survive.

“Don’t live in your head,” she said. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“And one more thing,” she said harshly, as we turned in to their driveway. “Don’t expect fulfillment to seek you out. It won’t find you if you hide up there in the back bedroom, waiting. If you want to be someone, do something. Whatever it is. Stop hiding behind me, or Fred or anyone. Find what you love. Go out into the world and do it.”

“Don’t stay so still,” she added, her voice softening. “Left or right’s no matter, Rosie, just the fact of turning.”

I write in lowercase, no capitals, just as Shirley does. It helps me think like her.

“Writing is the devil’s game, Rose. Must I continually remind you?”

Is it lost girls who go to mountains, or do girls go to mountains so that they can be lost?